CARL COULD NEVER REMEMBER much of what happened when the Galathea crashed on K. 67092d. The hull of the deep space vessel protected those inside from the sound of it sweeping through kilometers of soil, rocks, and vegetation, cutting a swathe along the planet’s surface. He vaguely recalled the flight control visual showing the landscape flowing past like a runaway express train before the connection was destroyed and the screen went blank. After that, there was only the terrible juddering that made him feel as though his teeth were being shaken out of his head and his bones shattered.
With more than a hundred meters of engine lying between them and the ground, Carl dreaded to think what the juddering meant in terms of the prospect of the engines ever working again and allowing them to lea
